Essays
Written by Rick Rose
April 26,2026
Letting It All Hang Out: G-d Didn't Call for Socks
Nobody ever asks the big questions anymore.
We debate politics, religion, the nature of consciousness. But nobody stops to ask: why socks? Why underwear? Who decided these were non-negotiable? And more importantly — what happens when you decide they’re not?
I’ll tell you what happens. Freedom.
I am, by practice and by conviction, a barefootist. And I go commando. I have for years. This is not a cry for attention. It is not a lifestyle brand. I just don’t like things — things on my feet, things around my waist, things that bind or bunch or remind you they’re there. It is simply the logical conclusion of a man who has spent decades asking whether the things society insists upon are actually necessary — or just habit dressed up as decency. I didn’t ask for socks… Mom just laid them out.
Being a barefootist means bare feet whenever and wherever possible. There’s a reason saints talked about grounding. Indigenous people knew it too — that the earth beneath your feet is not just ground, it is connection. Without footwear, you are literally half an inch closer to the earth. So naturally, why would one wear socks? Or shoes, for that matter? The feet want what they want.
And going commando? It just feels better. It’s natural. There. It’s been said. No elastic. No bunching. No mid-day adjustments in a situation where mid-day adjustments are frowned upon. Just you, your clothes, and the quiet dignity of a human unencumbered.
Now, I want to be clear. I am not an “extremist.” I have learned — sometimes the hard way — that there are appropriate times and places for undergarments. Church, for instance. I wear underwear to church. There is something about sitting in the presence of the Almighty that calls for a little extra coverage. I also wear it when I’m teaching. There is something about standing in front of a classroom of young people that calls for at least one additional layer between you and the world. Call it respect. Call it professionalism. Call it not wanting that particular conversation with the dean.
But outside of those moments? We’re keeping it simple.
What if you just showed up — as yourself, unencumbered, un-elastic-banded — and let that be enough?
Most days, for me, it is.
Full confession. Somewhere on the horizon of my life — I imagine myself a nudist. Full stop. No socks, no underwear, no negotiation. Just a human, some sunshine, and the complete absence of waistbands.
I’m not there yet. But I can see it from here.
Someday I’ll take it all the way. Until then — moderation.
But just barely.
April 26,2026
A Rose by Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet
Shakespeare knew something about names. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet argues that a name is just a label — that the thing itself is what matters.
Names matter enormously. They stick. They follow you into every room, every relationship, every first impression for the rest of your life. And the decision to give someone a name — that tiny human with no say in the matter — is one of the most consequential decisions a parent will ever make.
No pressure.
Certainly, popular names have their appeal and are easy. The Jennifers. The Michaels. The Emmas and the Liams. Share the name with me, and I will often know your age. These are safely field-tested, tried and true so much that they recycle and resurface every few generations. But there’s another school of thought — that a name should feel like your name. Something that landed in your gut and felt true.
Often, the work begins long before the baby does. Lists are made, family members are consulted, syllables are tested against the last name to make sure nothing unfortunate rhymes with anything. Some parents arrive at the hospital with the name locked in. Others hold it loosely. And then there are the ones I’ve always admired most: the parents who wait. Who look at that brand new face and say, let me see who you are first. The instinct — to feel the baby before naming it — strikes me as deeply human and quietly wise.
I have long respected the African American tradition of naming. It is an act of authorship. Parents don’t just choose a name; they craft one. They combine sounds, invent spellings, build something entirely new. A name like Lakeisha or Deshawn isn’t pulling from a baby book — it’s pulling from imagination, from family, from a desire to give a child something that belongs to them alone.
Every life is singular. A child deserves to arrive in the world as the only one.
My mother didn’t agonize over my name. I was going to be Richard — the second in the line, as it was my father’s name. That was simply the way it was going to be. But when I arrived, someone said it: that’s Ricky Rose on the drums. And just like that, it stuck. Not because of a spreadsheet or a baby name book. Because I looked like a Ricky Rose. Because some names just announce themselves. The tradition carried forward — there is now a third and a fourth: Dylan Richard and Richie Wade. The thread holds, but the name evolves.
I’ve been lucky. Rick Rose works. People accept it.
A good name is a gift. It’s on your diploma, election ballots, your byline, your headstone. You carry it through every version of yourself.
A good name stays, even when you change.
April 18,2026
A Reason for Four Seasons
What would it be like waking up every day to the exact same sky? Same temperature. Same light. Same world outside your window as each preceding day. No shifts on the horizon. Why look up?
That's not living. That's passing time.
I know because I did it for ten years. Louisiana holds a place in my heart as a wonderful place with wonderful people. I made a lifetime of memories. But I missed feeling the dramatic passage of seasons. There they are gentle, almost as polite as the south itself -- they ease into one another without much fanfare. I didn't realize what I was missing until the ache of a surprise snowfall. It was gentle, polite, undramatic. Not the winter I knew and missed. I ached for the contrast. I missed the full story. So I came home to Wisconsin.
The four seasons exist, I believe, because we were never meant to stand still. Someone, something -- G-d, nature, the universe, HP -- looked at the human heart and understood that we need rhythm. We need reason to feel alive.
We need the experience of loss to appreciate return, and cold to make warmth feel like a miracle.
Winter strips everything down to its bare bones. My body looks forward to it every year -- the silence that only snow makes, not quiet but silence, and the refreshment of cold air as it passes through my nostrils that I cannot explain to anyone who hasn't breathed it deep. Clean. Sharp. Honest. Winter gives you permission to sit inside yourself.
Then spring breaks through when it’s ready yet welcomed— pulling the world back from beige and bare, coaxing color out of ground just when it looked like it had forgotten how. Spring offers a reset and refresh.
Summer arrives with long days that stretch from a cloud breaking blaze of sunrise to a humbling sunset the softens the earth. Tables full of fresh vegetables, set with an array of flowers. The earth, generous and unhurried, giving everything it has.
And fall — fall is the wisest season. My grandma used to say the trees put on a beautiful colored dress, then shed it as they dance all night to bring on a season of rest. They don’t mourn what they’re losing. They let go with brilliance and grace — something that looks a lot like gratitude.
Maybe the seasons were never really about weather. Maybe they were always about us — teaching us, without a single word, that nothing is meant to stay the same, and that every ending already holds the next beginning inside it.
Who needs the weatherman when you can feel the rhythm of seasons yourself. Live their story. You were written into it long before you had a say.
April 18,2026
Finding the Edge. Knowing When to Let Go
A farewell from my work as a Dane County Supervisor
I practice yin yoga. It's a discipline built on breath, stillness, and long holds -- finding the edge of what your body can do, then staying there in the discomfort until the release comes on its own.
Four years on the Dane County Board have felt like one long yin hold. And this work -- this beautiful, exhausting, necessary work -- has taught me the same thee things the mat has:
It is time to let go.
Every action I took on this board carried a voice that wasn't mine. The people not in the room. The people not at these tables. I cam to speak for them. My voice was their voice. My anger was their anger. And every victory we won -- we won together.
I showed up for
I came in to assist the most vulnerable. I leave doing the same.
Through three-plus decades working in television, I was told one thing about all else: never work with kids or animals.
My post-board life says: hell with that
Now teaching full time at my alma mater Beloit College, coaching Gen Z to find their voice -- to date, this has been the most rewarding work I've done. The median age of people living in Dane County is 35. Of the 37 Supervisors, only two represent that community. It is time to hear and engage the voices of our youth in local government -- where change actually happens.
One of the last of 350 pieces of legislation I sponsored was Resolution 119, voted affirmatively in October 2023 -- authored by my lifelong friend and colleague Supervisor Michele Ritt, whose mentorship brought me to this board. It's intent: to close down a beagle breeding and research center in our county,
RESOLUTION 119 - OCTOBER 2023
"Dogs are sentient beings that deserve care, respect, and ethical treatment, and therefore Dane County must ensure the lawful treatment of animals within its jurisdiction and must hold both local and state agencies accountable for enforcing the law."
And now the animal rescuers working to save these pups are being threatened with criminal charges by county officials. Here is where things come full circle.
"Congratulations on a body of solid work and activism. My first puppy was a beagle. As a non-proselytizing, ethical, but Native vegetarian, I espouse all animals being treated with honor in both life and death. The Ho-Chunk Nation's work in supporting rights of nature clearly shows these pups are being mistreated and saving them should not be a crime.
But I digress. Rick, there are electeds that like having the title and power, but don't truly show up for the work. You have and will never be one of those schmucks. I'm proud to call you a colleague and friend."
- A HO-CHUNK FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE
Two Ways to Keep the Conversation Going.
Tonight, after the meeting -- I'll be at Shamrock, just up the street from the City County Building. One of the few remaining gay bars in this country. Fair warning: the MAGA administration has deemed members of the queer community "gender extremists," so you may find yourself under investigation just for stopping in. Come anyway -- I'll be standing by you.
In the days ahead, leading up to the Open Orderly Rescue planned for April 19 -- work with county and state electeds to live out the promise made in Resolution 119, or stand up and protect the open rescue mission on Sunday.
Thanks for the four-year joy ride. It has been a privilege and an honor to serve Dane County, Wisconsin.
April 12,2026
Oneness
I am tired of the name-calling. I am tired of the signaling out. . And I know you are too.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking what does our country collectively need started asking who are you, and are you like me? That shift has cost us more than we realize.
Identity politics is the belief that where you come from matters more than where we are going. It is the habit of filtering every problem through the lens of race, gender, class, or party — and deciding who deserves help based on which group they belong to.
It is segregation under disguise. And it’s harmful and unproductive. It sorts us into camps, hands us enemies before we have even defined the problems, and rewards the loudest voice over the most useful one. It picks and chooses.
Identity politics quickly turns every policy debate into a loyalty test and every disagreement into a moral failure. It tells us the most important thing about a person is the category they fit into.
That is not governance for the people, by the people. It is dividing and devisive.
Meanwhile, real problems don’t wait. Economic anxiety. Mental health crises. Addiction. Infrastructure. These challenges don’t ask for your ID or your birth certificate before they knock on your door. They are indifferent to our arguments. They only want to know if we will act. And they need us to do so.
And while we argue, people are waiting and hurting and even dying.
Our common life is more real than our divided lives. We share the same roads, the same schools, the same hope that tomorrow is a little better than today. No political label changes that.
Governing means doing the hard work of finding common ground — not performing for a crowd, not scoring points, but actually solving problems together.
A slogan that labels us may win an argument. However, it has never fixed a road, treated an addiction, or kept a family housed.
The work is waiting. Let’s get it done. Stop the divide.
April 8,2026
Winner Winner
The headlines came in fast Tuesday night. Winners and losers. Who’s up, who’s down. The tallies rolled in across Dane County — this one wins, that one loses, on to the next race.
I was on that list. After four years serving District 16 as County Board Supervisor, the voters chose someone new. In the language of election night, I lost.
But that framing is wrong.
Democracy isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s a hand-off of trust. The people weigh in, they make a choice, and then something remarkable hopefully happens — the person leaving makes room, and the person arriving steps up. That’s not defeat. That’s the whole point.
One of the more poignant moments from my two terms, wasn’t a vote cast for 350 pieces of legislation I sponsored or a policy shaped, too may to name it came last night. It was the concession call.
Goodwill Obiese - the candidate the majority of voters just chose to represent District 16 Dane County - was on the receiving end. And what I heard was exactly what democracy is sounds like. Goodwill said he’d reach out for wisdom. I said I’d be there along the way.
No bitterness. No score-settling. Just one person handing the good work to the next. It’s a win-win.
And that’s also what the vote wins every single time — not a winner and a loser, but a peaceful transfer of trust from one neighbor to another, one servant to another.
March 29,2026
Taking Stock of Privilege
There is a moment when abundance stops feeling normal and starts feeling like something worth examining. I have three toilets in a home I live in alone. I have two heated garage parking spots and one car. I have a dishwasher, an air fryer, a microwave, three electric blankets for my European feather bed and favorite chairs - one of which is a 240-hand massage chair, something most people will never sit in in a lifetime.
I have 1,800 square feet of living space, three storage closets stuffed full of things I mostly see on holidays - if I even remember to pull them out. I have two walk-in closets and a foyer closet. On a cold morning, my biggest decision is which hoodie in which color, with or without pockets. And on a hot evening, which length of short and what feel of fabric do I choose.
And yet everything that actually matters to me fits in two shoeboxes.
Letters. Notes. Photographs. Small trinkets from people I love and people who have loved me.
No brand name. No price tag. Nothing you could shop for. Just proof that I was known by someone, and that I knew them back. That is the inventory that never lies.
And somewhere between those two shoeboxes chosen from the hundred pairs of shoes I have collected is the question I think about more and more - what is the quiet weight of having too much? It's time I let that thought lead my ways.
February 14,2026
The Burden of Truth, The Benefit of an Oath
There is a weight that comes with an oath. Not the ceremonial kind - words spoken into a room full of people who clap and go home - but the kind that settles into your chest in the quiet moments. As an elected official, I am honored with representing fifteen thousand people. Parents and elders. Newlyweds and animal rights activists. Muslims and Christians. Trans individuals and abolitionists. Workers and those the system has worn down. They did not all agree to agree. They simply agreed to live in the same place - and that place became mine to speak for.
The majority of those voices are silent. Not because they have nothing to say, but because somewhere along the way they decided their voice wasn't worth the risk. So I go looking and listening. And then comes the silent gift: weaving a community of contradictions into something like a unified chord.
Along the way, I have been labeled a racist. A privileged cisgender white man. An attention seeker. Even worse. My mom never wanted her son to get into politics for that reason. I don't hide it when the names come - I go to her. We sit together and work through it, the way we always have. She raised me along with the guidance of G-d. Mom always told us kids that people may dislike what you do, but hate is not something to be valued or played.
You see - and I see - a burden can also be a benefit. The weight of it is proof of the work.
I show up. That is my oath.